


brimstone in my garden

by tsaritsaa



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: F/M, and roy not giving a heck about caution anymore, in which i explore riza's perception of her self-control
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:47:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24618577
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsaritsaa/pseuds/tsaritsaa
Summary: “Riza.”No blood falls from his mouth when he says her name. No flames unfurl, like a dragon awakening from a deep slumber. Just her name, falling as delicately as pearls, or diamonds, or gold dust.Did she dream of this? A different kind of fairy tale, where the morals got all muddled in the beginning.
Relationships: Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang
Comments: 27
Kudos: 89





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for royai week 2020 (day 2). mother mother’s song _little pistol_ was a lot of fun to play around with. technically, this is the first part (with the latter being completed with _old wounds_ for tomorrow’s prompt), but this can also be read as a stand-alone piece.

> _and now i want brimstone in my garden  
> _ _i want roses set on fire_

When she was a younger girl, in more tender and innocent years, Riza remembers reading an anthology of fairy tales. One story always stood out to her – a witch, a hag, a crone (the details never mattered, _never mattered)_ asked three sisters three times if they would draw water from a well for her to drink. The first two were selfish and snobby and spoiled and refused to help every request, but the third (and it was _always the third sister_ – the number three seemed to follow Riza wherever she went in her life) took pity and drew the water on the third, begged request. 

In return for her good deed, whenever she spoke, pearls and diamonds and gold dust would flutter from her mouth. The other sisters got gifts like toads and snakes. In theory, it sounded like a fair exchange. What could be more beautiful, a more just gift for one act of kindness than choking on precious gems and metals?

Riza wonders what the crone would give her. Did the sum of her life determine her gifts? Toads and asps wouldn’t be fitting for her. Would blood flow from her mouth like a river whenever she dared to open her mouth? Would it spill out, overflowing from her eyes, nostrils, ears? Would she be judged against the sheer want to make the world a better place? Or perhaps every act would be judged on their own merits: a thousand years of choking on blood for the sum of lived life she took away before its time.

Her maudlin moods are becoming more a common occurrence these days, in spite of her focus being pulled in what feels like seventy-three different directions. To her left, the Colonel is deep in conversation on the phone; the newly-instated Führer, she surmises, judging by the tone and inflections he uses. Both of them are used to playing the roles George Grumman has created and expected for them in his own little design of what the world ought to be. Is it the lack of apparent change in their circumstances that is rubbing at her, despite the very world heaving and shuddering beneath their feet just eight days before?

Perhaps it’s the renegotiation of their lives that has her off-kilter. She finds herself more distracted these days, more than she should be. Their recovery, both physical (and otherwise) should be as simple as it is on paper. More blood transfusions, more bandages, more bags of morphine. All little forms of equivalent exchange.

Her gaze refocuses, and she sees the Colonel staring at her intently. The phone is back in its cradle next to his hospital bed. Truthfully, she couldn't answer to how long she's been lost in her head. Perhaps part of it is the morphine she's on – the bag is replaced like clockwork every morning. She should be upset at her inability to focus on her raison d'être. She doesn’t want to contemplate about whether it is a lack of focus, or a _change_ in focus.

"You're thinking again," he says.

"I'm always thinking, sir."

The Colonel hums. He's been doing a lot of that lately. Humming his thoughts. Watching her. _Noticing_ her.

It's unnerving because _she's_ the one who is meant to have her eyes squarely trained on his back. This scrutiny is not... normal from him. She is not used to it, and certainly not from _him._ She can think of two-hundred and thirty-two issues off the top of her head that should be taking precedence. People to contact, legislation to draft, connections and favours to call upon, years in the making. But instead, it appears like she's become his new default. It's unusual, and an unwelcome deviation from the plan. _Their_ plan.

 _These things come in threes_ ; she tells herself. _One, two, thr-_

"Riza."

No blood falls from his mouth when he says her name. No flames unfurl, like a dragon awakening from a deep slumber. Just her name, falling as delicately as pearls, or diamonds, or gold dust.

"Sir," she responds carefully, after a moment. There's a warning nestled in her diction. Another kind of pistol trained on him right now, to the right of his sternum and just a few centimetres down.

He shakes his head, rising from his bed, walking the scant steps that separate them. She _liked_ that space. It gave her control, gave her power in a world where she was afforded very little to begin with.

"Riza," he repeats. His expression is plainer, more obvious. Begging? Perhaps. But she'd never give him the satisfaction of acknowledging this anymore than he already has, because then she'll be choking on bloodied emotions she's been repressing for well over a decade. Did she dream of this? A different kind of fairy tale, where the morals got all muddled in the beginning.

His bandaged hands grasp hers, his thumbs traversing the rises and dips of her knuckles. She's well aware of her trembling. She's done so well to refuse him so far. Before he left for the academy. Before he left for Ishval.

 _One, two, three_.

> _and now i found brimstone in my garden_   
>  _i found roses set on fire_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _diamonds and toads_ , most famously attributed to charles perrault, is the fairy tale that riza is alluding to. i wrote this out in full before actually bothering to fact-check the points of the story lol, so there’s a bit of a contextual difference in the morals here – but hey, amestris isn’t exactly analogous to western folklore so i’d say i’m off the hook for now


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for day 3 of royai week 2020. lyrics come from pvris' song 'old wounds'.

> _they say don't open old wounds  
>  but you're still brand new_

She remembers the first time she killed something. One of their sheep had escaped from the paddock (crumbling fences, rusted no. 8 wire, uncared for by anyone for years) and had been hit by a passing military convoy. Riza doesn’t remember what had caused Chester to spook the way he did – maybe the engine had backfired, maybe she had been too high-pitched in her frantic calls to coax him away from the boundary – but he had skitted out, bleating, and ended up smashing into the radiator of the vehicle.

What she _does_ recall is the men, exceedingly kind and apologetic. A taller, greying one had handed her a knife that glinted despite the overcast day, and instructed her where to slice the throat.

_He’s in pain, lass. You need to put him out of his misery._

_Her_ misery for the assigned task wasn’t acknowledged at the time, but her father made sure to express his disapproval of carelessly losing precious stock. They were far too poor by that point to afford a ram out of season.

The stew she made from his mutton was bitter and tough, and Riza decided then that she needed a better weapon to protect herself from getting blood on her hands.

* * *

She retires the pistol the day she is discharged from the hospital. It’s the first action she does when she returns to her apartment, rummaging at the back of her wardrobe to find the false panel: behind it, a nondescript tan suitcase.

The rest of her apartment is one bomb short of a war zone: it looks like a platoon had canvassed every inch – whether to find her, or any information that could be useful for their early capture on the Promised Day. One person had been kind enough to scatter Black Hayate’s dog food all across the hallway, so Riza leaves him to his own devices. Her boy deserves a meal a bit more extravagant than extra biscuits but in the lead-up to their coup she hadn’t been on top of her grocery shopping.

She hasn’t seen the contents of the suitcase for a long time. It wouldn’t have mattered if the soldiers had discovered it – the most valuable piece within is probably her faded birth certificate, but those records are filed away in one of the branch libraries regardless. But it feels right that it wasn’t disturbed. There are ugly memories sandwiched in between the faded leather, and each time she opens it there is an immediate assault of associations.

Her first sniper rifle, cleanly separated into three distinct pieces. Old dog tags. The waiver she signed at sixteen. Frayed gloves that still stink of Ishval, even after a decade in the dark.

She’s not upset to lose the pistol to this suitcase – it’s no skin off her back to replace it – but it troubles her that the collection is still growing. How many more objects will find their resting place here? How many more times will she have to unzip it before her actions no longer require such quarantining?

She doesn’t jolt when his hand slides against her skin, coming to rest against the bandages still encircling her neck. There’s only one person who would touch her so brazenly; and he’s been doing a lot of that lately, so Riza figures it’s simply easier to let him get whatever fixation he has out of his system. A bored Colonel is a _dangerous_ Colonel, and better his boredom be satiated with her, than elsewhere where she can’t protect him from his own foolish heart.

It doesn’t matter that the warmth of his skin feels good against her own, like it _belongs_ there. It doesn’t matter that she isn’t stopping these transgressions, enjoying them like a coveted delicacy.

He’s crossed that unspoken threshold between them, but she’ll be damned if she acknowledges that he has, because then she will need to justify its existence.

His fingers, soft and stroking against the nape of her neck are a very effective rebuttal to any reason that rises in her mind.

“I thought I should also add to this collection,” the Colonel says softly, by way of introduction. He kneels down next to her on the bedroom floor – again, his warmth is inviting when she shouldn’t think so; his plain scent of soap and aftershave only adds to the growing discomfit of just _how_ comfortable she finds herself around him.

“I see,” is how she responds, measured and careful. She doesn’t even need to look at his hands to know what he’s holding, just as he understands what she is doing in her bedroom, kneeling in front of an old suitcase mere hours after discharge.

Perhaps one of these days she’ll feel free enough to simply have him burn the contents – the irony that he’d be burning his own gloves is not lost on her – but Riza’s always known she holds onto things well after she should’ve let them go.

She knows he’s watching her as they place their respective weapons into the suitcase. She knows he has been watching her for years. It’s easier to acknowledge that when he’s been squarely trained between her sights at a respectable distance.

The vulnerability of being seen – of being loved even as she holds the metaphorical knife to his throat closer than she ever has before – weighs heavily on her as she finally meets his unwavering gaze.

She knows this expression, knows the way it softens his face, like the sight of her _alone_ can absolve him from the responsibilities knocking for them beyond this suitcase.

She knows these eyes, dark and desperate. She still refuses to eat mutton because of it.

> _they say don't open old wounds  
>  but i'm going to _


End file.
